Vol. 71/No. 18      May 7, 2007

U.S. president George Bush has made it clear he will veto any bill that contains deadlines for troop withdrawal. Leading Democrats and Republicans say they’ll get the bill to Bush quickly, so that after his veto another war funding bill that is acceptable to the administration can be worked out and passed.

Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 residents of the Adhamiyah section of Baghdad marched in the streets yesterday to protest the building of a three-mile-long 10-foot-high wall around their neighborhood as part of a new U.S. military counterinsurgency plan. A similar measure failed during the U.S. war on Vietnam.

In March, the House and Senate passed separate bills to fund the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which differed on when U.S. troops would be repositioned. The House version set a mandatory “redeployment” deadline of Sept. 1, 2008, while the Senate set a nonbinding deadline of March. 31, 2008. House Democrats have since agreed to the “nonbinding” dates.

The agreement reached on the current version was preceded by weeks of “antiwar” posturing by Democrats, particularly by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. During an April 19 press conference with Senate Democrats, Reid said, “This war is lost.” He also said redeploying the troops does not mean pulling them out.

Other leading Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama, a presidential hopeful, and Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin have said their party will not cut war funding.

In Baghdad, residents of Adhamiyah, a largely Sunni district of the Iraqi capital, marched and rallied in the neighborhood’s main square to protest being cordoned off in what the U.S. military has dubbed “gated communities.” Iraqis at the protest referred to the planned structure as the “Sectarian Segregation Wall.”

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would order a halt to construction of the wall. But a spokesman for the Iraqi military said building of the barriers would continue.

As part of its crackdown, launched in January with the announcement that more U.S. troops would be deployed to Iraq, the U.S. military plans to cordon off 10 districts in Baghdad and use biometric eye scans and fingerprints to track those entering and leaving the areas.
 
 
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